


The Gentleman Doctor

by Breakinglight11



Category: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:51:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breakinglight11/pseuds/Breakinglight11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of Henry Jekyll, and the conflicted struggle inside him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On the Fringes

THE GENTLEMAN DOCTOR  
By Phoebe Roberts  
~~~

Where had it all begun? Why had it all come to this?

Henry Jekyll must have asked himself that a thousand times over. And still, he had no answer.

His was not a beginning that lent itself to making men into monsters. He had grown up in a world of wealth and privilege, born into a family of most immaculate breeding and character beyond reproach. His parents were kind but exacting people. They brought him up strictly, according to the high standard of behavior expected of his class, for they desired him, above all else, to be a gentleman.

Henry was in truth a little daunted by the all that such behavior demanded. It was a great deal to ask of a young man, but his parents expected from him no less. A gentleman was to be lofty and admirable in his nature, accomplished, perfectly mannered, and above all the petty vices found in lesser men. The achieving of this ideal was his upbringing’s ultimate goal. They taught him well, his mother and father and governesses, in all befitting this, meant to be equally well-handled whether out in the world, in one’s own home, or at an acquaintance’s party.

The last stood out strongly in his memory. The parties in his youth were the gathering place of all the highest in society. He had been in good company there, in the presence of fine people. He remembered his friends being there, like Gabriel John Utterson, who would become a lawyer, and Hastie Lanyon, later to be a physician. All three lads were highly intelligent, with all the promise in the world, and since their school days the closest of friends.

But his thoughts turned more to the young women who had been present. There were always ladies there, ladies his age, of fine family and good reputation. Their faces flashed in his mind like the facets of a jewel. Estella Havisham, her dusky skin almost exotic-looking and her dark curls framing a heart-shaped face. Irene Adler, cool and demure with jet-black waves cascading down to her waist. Gwendolyn Fairfax, her hair as fiery as her spirit and her green eyes aglow. Jane Eyre, plain of face, but so fair and sweet of disposition as to be radiant. He remembered all these and more.

Though never very much confident or outgoing, Henry made an effort to acquaint himself with them. Indeed, how they had delighted in his company. They were charmed by his sharp wit and clever conversation, and more so how well he listened to them, all solicitude, all tender attention. Perhaps most of all their hearts were warmed by his sincerity, his earnest desire to know them and make their friendship.

Perhaps before all else, Henry wanted to marry. There was a certain romanticism in his nature, and the idea of two souls bound together in epic devotion appealed to it. His was a heart that meant to love and to be loved, and in that, he was sure, he would find his happiness. And so it was for this that he spoke well and sweetly to the young lady friends, in hopes of someday finding his soul mate.

But Jekyll was not a man greatly sure of himself, and had ever possessed a strong tendency to over-think. Every smile, every word, ever glance, he pored over in his head in search of some deeper meaning, some clue to the truth of their feelings. Truly, much that they did lent itself to speculation. They held to his hands and leaned in close, laughing at his wit. They would smile at him and tell him how sweet he was. They would think him their dearest friend.

But they would not love him. They would never love him.

It took him what seemed like desperate ages to come to this realization. At long last he understood how they truly saw him, understood that there was no need to search for hidden meaning, for there was none to be found. No, they always told him precisely what they meant, for they trusted him, and felt they could tell him anything. He was their perfect friend, their perfect non-threatening confidant. With him they shared their thoughts and dreams, and on his shoulders they cried. They cared for their Dear Harry, as they called him— and never thought to consider him romantically.

Henry had always lacked of self-confidence, and this only further served to erode it. He took an inventory of himself, marking every personal flaw that could turn a lady away. He was good-looking but ordinary, perhaps handsome in a bland and forgettable way, but a mere shadow of his striking father and lovely mother. He was a lad of good stature yet nothing very impressive, his skin a little too pale, his features a little too common. There was nothing very special about his appearance to catch a lady’s eye. And of his personality, well, he was so very timid and retiring, a bookish intellectual rather than a figure appealing or romantic. No man such as him ever strongly held anyone’s attention, much less a woman’s love.

And so Henry never spoke a word to them of his tender hopes, for he knew none of it could ever be. Such passive rejection hurt him deeply enough; he could not bear the thought of the conscious, deliberate kind. He could not bear the thought of seeing pity in their eyes.

As if that weren’t heartbreak enough, as if it didn’t tear at his self-regard enough, there was yet more too it. He found himself in moments, shameful, loathsome moments, when romance gave way to something baser. Their nearness stirred in him moments when he saw them not as ladies, not as friends… but as females.

Thoughts of love and courtship were dashed away by thoughts of a very different sort, crude imaginings of things a true gentleman did not even wonder of until his wedding night. All regard for the friendship and respect he held with them vanished in the surge of basely animal need.

It was wrong, he knew it was wrong, and yet, that very knowledge spoke strangely to him. The illicitness of it had its own wicked appeal, made his thoughts more darkly enticing than ever. Such fancies were beneath a true gentleman— yet they were so forbidden and alluring they made his throat go dry.

But even to this less lofty feeling, he found perhaps even less response. To them he was sexless, dear but always chastely, without romance. They thought of Henry as comfortable and familiar, an object of neither their interest nor excitement. He was ever before their eyes, and ever unnoticed by them. No matter how he looked to them, they would never look back.

He watched them marry, one by one, each falling in love with some worthy gentleman. Not Henry, though, never Henry; with whom they were glad to share their minds and souls, but would not share their lives. It drove him to distraction even as his heart twisted despairingly within him. Every maid remained ignorant to how Henry felt— and to how he looked at them. They never saw it. He never allowed them to see.

How he burned with shame for the lustful urges he harbored. It was wrong, he told himself. He could not possibly act any more disgracefully. And yet he could not control it. His every effort to stifle his compulsions only made them stronger, more impossible to deny.

For this weakness, he heaped recriminations upon himself in disgust. Was he a gentleman or a wanton brute? How could he be worthy of a woman’s love, when he had looked on her as nothing more than an object of carnality? How could he permit himself conduct so dishonorable? Henry lived in conflict, his moral mind against his immoral instinct. He could not come to terms with it, and so all he could do was repress it. Normal social interaction became a struggle, and came at the expense of his self-esteem.

He suffered greatly for this heightened self-consciousness, for so much of the time it held him back. Some of the worst times were at the parties. Jekyll truly enjoying dancing, but was too ungainly to be much good at it. He could acquit himself passably well at the slower ones, like waltzes and stately pavanes. He enjoyed the grace and intimacy of that kind of dancing, of holding his partner close through the elegant steps. It was at those times that he could close his eyes and pretend they shared something more than just the dance.

But emerging with growing popularity among his friends were the lively, fast-paced dances; reels, cotillions, galliards. These required quick, intricate movements he lacked the dexterity to perform. All too often did Henry find himself a wallflower, far too embarrassed by his natural clumsiness to allow himself to join in. He did not know it at the time, but this was to be by and large the way of his life— a man standing on the edge of something he could only witness, never know for himself.

It was happenings such as this that shaped the way many people thought of him. There was a certain diminishing effect that came from his unsure, retiring nature. He was a nervous fellow with a constitution that was never robust, so he took on a certain delicacy in their minds. Many of the others’ favorite pursuits, he was not of the temperament to join in. He had no skill in martial sports, like hunting or riding or fencing. Nor was he one for the adventures across Europe, or in America, or India and Africa, that so many of them delighted in. They saw a distinct meekness and mildness in the doctor, a cautious spirit rather than an adventurous one. He was close to so many ladies, ever ready to offer a handkerchief or just the right word to make them smile, yet still largely ignored by them. He was introverted, often painfully insecure, and it colored the way they looked at him. They relegated him ever to the sidelines, to an estimation of unimportance. As it would be for the rest of his life, Henry was irrevocably marginalized.

The young man suffered greatly for this, for Henry longed for the respect of those who were wise and good. Perhaps, then, it would not matter so much that he could not respect himself. And so he grew up with this ever weighing on his mind.

He wanted to be well-thought of, wanted to free himself from that minimized and overlooked image so many people held of him. There was only one path he could see that would lead to such esteem in the world, and that was the way of the gentleman. A gentleman was to be educated, accomplished, and virtuous— qualities Henry was determined to attain.

~~~


	2. Honor and Virtue

That Henry possessed a singularly great intellect was apparent from a young age. He went away to school at Cambridge when he was not yet seventeen years old. This was young to be accepted by such an establishment, but he so impressed the school authorities that they consented to his early admission.

The Cambridge years were some of the best in all his life. There, he discovered there was great value in his bookishness and scholarly dedication. The course load he shouldered was immense, but he remained undaunted, setting about his studies with an eager fire. He swiftly mastered all forms of mathematics, from algebra to geometry to calculus. Languages, too, absorbed him; he took courses in tongues both modern and ancient, attaining fluency in French, Greek, and Latin, as well as studied the marvelous intricacies of English. The sciences, though, were his true passion. Biology, physics, and chemistry fascinated him, and he took course after course in their fields. That which he did not study formally he read extensively of in books, granting him additional expertise in botany, astronomy, geology, and others. In his every course of study he excelled, and he continued to all the way through medical school.

His training in medicine brought out strengths in him like he’d never had before. He discovered to his joy that he possessed a singular aptitude for surgical operation. Far from being clumsy, there was a strength and surety in his hands when it came to the work of surgery. That, paired with his seemingly limitless capacity to learn, bespoke a great deal of promise in the world of medicine.

He graduated from Cambridge summa cum laude. He was twenty-six years old, with a doctoral degree and a bright future ahead of him. He found the practice of medicine suited him. He enjoyed ministering to the sick and the suffering. With his learned expertise, his steady hand, and his compassionate manner, he gained great renown as a good and trustworthy doctor. How often he was told that he should be very proud.

Upon the death of his mother and father, he became the new head of the household and the master of his ancestral home. Even after he completed his formal education, he remained dedicated to the search for knowledge and truth. He converted an old storeroom into a laboratory in which to conduct his experiments. He could spend hours in his sanctuary of science, engrossed in his research and the study of medicine. He dabbled in sciences of all sorts, of which chemistry was his special interest. He even took up some strenuous physical activities; there was strength now in his slim form, muscle in his chest and abdomen. He was flawlessly well-read, tearing through scientific texts and the works of classical authors with equal relish. He kept a fine large library that was the envy of his circle. He was also a great lover of music, and showed considerable talent at playing the cello. And analytical thinker that he was, no one could ever best him at chess.

People all across London knew the name of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., et cetera, et cetera. All that made his acquaintance came away with a feeling of esteem for the good gentleman doctor.

“Doctor Henry Jekyll,” he would introduce himself. “At your service.”

He rose to prominence in the high society of London, building a reputation on the good name of his family and the image he put forth. Through his inheritance and his thriving medical practice, he was worth over a quarter of a million sterling. He dressed well, kept in strong form, and cultivated a fine taste for wine and art. He became well-known for his philanthropic acts as well, and gave generously to charitable causes. He was respected by all who knew him, and by none more than those to whom he was closest. His butler Poole, who’d served his family as a gentleman’s gentleman for twenty years, spoke nothing but praise for the doctor’s honor and virtue. Doctor Henry Jekyll was a man well-liked, universally well-thought of.

It was all a lie.

They spoke of honor, they spoke of virtue. Jekyll knew in his heart he had none of these. There was no virtue left in him. Virtue was a lie.

A lie it may have been, but one he struggled desperately to maintain in front of his friends. They were good men, the best society had to offer, and their esteem was desperately important to him, especially that of his old friend the lawyer, Gabriel Utterson.

He’d watched Utterson in envy, for his friend’s easy devotion to the right and good. Gabriel was a stern, severe man, perhaps appearing somewhat on the tedious side, but not so to those who knew him well. To Henry he was the very soul of the gentleman. Utterson’s friends, to whom he was unfailingly devoted, took special pleasure in his quiet, intelligent company. Perhaps most admirable of all, the lawyer was a man who passed no judgments; to those in troubled straits he would offer help and loyalty, rather than condemnation and rebuke. If there was any man Henry could take into his confidence, it would be him, but the doctor could not bring himself to speak. He trusted Utterson more than any— more than even he trusted himself —but it was because of the man’s great character that he was too ashamed to tell of the wrongs in his own.

Gabriel once said to him that all men have done deeds of which they are not proud, but there was hardly a sin committed to darken that man’s conscience. Had the lawyer overindulged in drink once, or tossed dice in a tavern, or some other token folly of youth? Such things were venial, pardonable, even insignificant by comparison to the darkness in Jekyll’s soul.

Gabriel thought he knew him. He was aware of Henry’s youthful indiscretions, as his friend called them, insomuch that Henry had done things of which he was ashamed. But being the true gentleman Utterson was, he did not press for any more than that.

What Utterson did not know was that those indiscretions had continued from youth into adulthood. He kept this from all his friends, from all the world.

Often he would listen to the way men of his circle would speak of the city. They thought the society of London to be the premier and best of all the civilizations of the world. Theirs was the highest standard of behavior and propriety, theirs were the greatest of art and learning, theirs was the triumph of virtue over vice. Theirs was all that was purely admirable.

Henry knew better. Oh, how he knew.

He had been twenty-four when the dam of his reserve broke, and the flood unleashed had first swept him to the darkness.

Those respectable gentlemen who spoke so highly of their city had not seen so much of it as Henry had. They knew only the centers of class and taste. But there were other places in London, places where God’s light never seemed to touch. Unclean places, destitute and disease-ridden. Hideous deeds were committed there every day, crimes that no one would ever hear of, that no one even knew occurred. There was where society’s damned suffered in their living Hell.

There, he would cast off the name and the respectable image of Doctor Henry Jekyll. He planned his excursions with as painstaking care as he took in the performing of surgery. Henry kept to himself a great deal, often in his laboratory where no one would see him for hours on end. The servants would pay it little mind when the master of the house wasn’t right around. They would think he was simply shut up working in his laboratory and did not wish to be disturbed. It would go unnoticed if he disappeared for a few hours, leaving through the door that lead out into a darker side of the street.

He usually devised some errand that needed to be run, some reason for his going out. Perhaps it would be a visit to a museum or to the symphony, or to attend on a patient that lived some distance away. Sometimes it was nothing more elaborate than a simple evening stroll. Whatever his invented purpose, he made meticulously sure that no one would miss that he never actually arrived.

The next step was to disguise any aspects that might identify him as Henry Jekyll. He was known to be very well-dressed, so it would not do to be seen in those dark places attired like a gentleman. Casting off the costume of the wealthy, respectable doctor, Henry dressed carefully down to disguise himself, and hid it all beneath a greatcoat until he reached his destination.

Even his method of departure was cautiously circumspect. Sometimes he would disappear in the dead of night, leaving always through the back door of the laboratory where no one would see him go. Many a time he did not dare to hire a cab, for fear that the driver might remember him later. In those cases, he kept to the shadows and walked.

And so the doctor plunged into London’s own working miniature of Sodom and Gomorrah. And there, he shed the image of the Henry Jekyll the world knew.

In his circle of friends, Jekyll was known to be a connoisseur of fine wines and a moderate, sensible drinker. Here, haunting dark, seamy taverns in the company of society’s dregs, he drowned his sorrows in strong, ghastly liquor until he no longer knew what he was drinking. With enough of it, it hardly mattered anyway. Its numbing strength kept from him all feeling— his pain, his fears, his pervasive self-loathing mercifully abandoned him. And in such a state, all thought for principle was entirely stripped away.

Henry Jekyll was known as a peaceful man, who righteously abhorred the crudity of violence, and valued his reason and dignity too highly to ever engage in it. The doctor was also thought of as a careful man, even to the point of nervous over-caution. Privately many people thought him a touch fainthearted. But when he was good and drunk, robbed of these sensibilities, he was ready to take on anyone. And so in those darkened, disreputable public houses, Henry would throw himself into fights that, if he were sober, would have sent him cowering.

In times of clear thought later, he could not for the life of him recall what would instigate them. All he knew was that something inside him was bent on violence. He would strike out like one possessed, driven by a nameless, directionless, half-realized anger. Of course he did not emerge from these brawls completely unscathed, but the injuries he sustained did not trouble him; truly, they were part of the reason he fought at all. He was a doctor; he understood physical pain, knew how to contend with it. Pain of body blocked out that of the heart. Alcohol and violence overbore the suffering he did not know how to deal with, and on the isolated occasion when they were not enough, he turned to opium.

To society’s view, Jekyll’s sensibilities as a physician kept him away from unhealthful things. Indeed, at first the smoky dens with their chemical-ravaged denizens would horrify him, so much he dared not enter. His every instinct as a doctor cried out against such an unwholesome practice, nor was sure he could handle it if he dared. While in general good health, his constitution was not strong, and faced assaults from his other excesses. But when it all became too much for him to bear, he cast these worries to the winds and accepted this only other deliverance.

Opium brought oblivion more absolute than any alcohol could. In the dreamy, all-encompassing dullness of the drug, there was room for neither honor nor shame, neither guilt nor exultation. Not for him were other deadly chemicals, such as cocaine and the like, for they brought on mad, sick energy while he wanted only the deadened emptiness of feeling. Opium granted him reprieve from even his sense of self. Never mind that it made him wrenchingly ill for days afterward, conjuring up formless chemical horrors from within his own mind, until the wicked substance worked out of his system. It pushed him beyond all thought into near-insensibility. And for him, insensibility was escape.

These were the things Jekyll did to escape, to handle his sadness and self-loathing. They brought the mercy of forgetfulness, of blessed dullness to pain. These, though, were not the doctor’s chief vice, the vice he despised himself for above all others. That, of course, was women.

~~~


	3. Wicked Excess

The wicked stirrings he felt were the great bane of his existence. But the need was in him, and it gave him no peace. His only defense had been repression, forcing those urges back into the depths of his subconscious. They lay dormant there for a long time, but as was the way with things repressed, they grew steadily in their intensity until they could no longer be contained. For the first time, Henry not only lusted, but acted on his lust.

The doctor kept no mistress, nor was he a philanderer engaging in love affairs. He had not the courage to approach a lady of his acquaintance, nor even one who was not— he did not dare entreat an honest woman to join in his depravity. Indeed, he was sure, what honest woman would want anything to do with him, contemptible sinner that he was? The fear of inadequacy, the fear of rejection, ingrained in him since youth, cut into his soul like a blade— the thought of offering himself and being turned down was more than he could endure.

There was only one sort of woman he could go to for this. He needn’t fear rejection, needn't fear exposure to his deeds. As he drove through less savory parts of the city on everyday business, he saw their sort now and again from the widow of the carriage. They stood in the shaft of light cast by the gas-fixtures, their very presence under the lamps advertising their services. He hardly dared to look at them in their immodesty, even as his gaze was irresistibly drawn.

Approaching one for the first time took all the boldness he could conjure up.

He would slink towards the streetlamp, his shoulders hunched and the collar of his greatcoat turned up around his neck. He stood at the edge of the gas-fixture’s glow, clinging to the shadows. He was afraid to cross into the light, as much out of embarrassment as for disguise. In unsure, stammering tones, he’d inquired as to her availability. It was an expensive business of which to make a habit, but money was no object to one such as him. He hardly knew what he was getting into, less so what to expect, but soon enough he learned.

He remembered his first time well, no tender and loving act on the night of his wedding as once he intended it to be, but a clumsy, messy deed that was over mortifyingly soon. What he had once hoped would be a sacred act was now forever desecrated in his memory.

The world knew a Henry Jekyll who was of perfectly courtly propriety in his dealings with ladies. He made friends with them, took interest in their minds and in their souls. Never, they thought, would such baseness or crudity appeal to him. But in truth, Jekyll could not stand to be so at odds with himself any longer; the loneliness and lust were more than he could bear. The mild-mannered doctor had no choice but to find release.

These were women who had seen all kinds, and Jekyll’s type they thought they knew right off. There he was more meek and timid than ever, near overwhelmed by nervous embarrassment. In his shame, he hardly dared to meet their eyes. But once they began, they would find such desperation, even ferocity, in him that all but the most jaded of courtesans were left somewhat unsettled. His meekness would become in a flash something that was almost bestial.

In the moment there was nothing but the act, no other desire but the one. He was neither gentle nor skillful, only too desperate. What did it matter then, that the unions were anonymous and without love? What did it matter that the women were nothing more than harlots? He cared only that they were warm and female and did not spurn his touch. Before long, Henry had come to rely on these illicit unions. They acted as placeholders for all the things the doctor missed in life.

For his reputation’s sake, he naturally could never disclose his real name. He would go instead, when a name was needed, by some pseudonym he made up on the spot and forgot as soon as it was given. But before long the anonymity started to wear on him. On rare occasion, when the sick impersonality became too much, he would identify himself simply as Harry, as he was once called by the ladies in his youth. Just to hear them say something like his name gave a semblance of the closeness of which he was in such desperate need.

But these gave him respite from only his basest longings. They were nothing more than rough, fleshly encounters, paid for in coin. But they were the nearest he knew to companionship. It felt pleasant physically, and, briefly, made him feel wanted. They noticed him. They cared for nothing beyond that for which he paid, but they noticed him. For a little while at least, he was no longer alone. But when the act was complete and the fevered need was slaked, he’d all but bolt from her company. And once he was away, alone again, how he’d sob, and loathe himself.

The dishonor of it disgusted him, the disgrace cut into him like a blade. Worst of all, though, was the emptiness— that when all was said and done, he remained as alone as he’d been before. As he usually did, he took out his pocket watch, a handsome, delicate thing his father had given him before he’d gone away to Cambridge. In times of stress he brought it out; its presence soothed him and reminded him of his parents. If his father had known of his ignominy, the shame would have broken his heart. And his mother— his very soul shied at what she would think. He hated himself for indulging his weaknesses, for giving in to what he should have been above. And yet ever he returned to some prostitute’s embrace, crushed with the surety that one such as him, no good woman could ever want.

He left no mark on these places, nothing by which to remember him; just the anonymous, unassuming presence of a pale man whose dark hair had a touch of red in it, and a haunted look in his eyes. He simply swept away and resumed the honorable, virtuous persona of Dr. Henry Jekyll.

Honor and virtue indeed, he thought bitterly. Whatever honor he’d had, he’d drowned in drink and muddled with opium. His virtue he had beaten bloody, lost to a score of London whores.

In all truth and fairness, Jekyll did not do these things often. Most of his life honestly was one of honor and good works, the things he truly was devoted to. If he had the self-control for it, he would never stray from them. The drugs and violence were only rare and momentary lapses. Even the whorehouse, the most common theater of his vice, he manage to keep away from by and large. But still, it was only a matter of time before what little control he’d hold over himself would shatter, and it would be off to the tavern or the brothel, to lose himself in blood and sex and alcohol.

He was not well-affected by these excesses, but he grew adept at hiding their ravages from even the members of his household. The generally retiring nature of his life allowed him to withdraw for whatever time was necessary to recover, without attracting any great attention to it.

It was not always easy, however, to return unnoticed in some states, especially if he could safely not hire a cab. But here, his unassuming presence was a blessing rather than curse. He stumbled home battered and bloody from his violent excursions, often badly hurt. A time or two it was by miracle alone that he was not dead. He treated himself as best he could without giving himself away, concealing the cuts and bruises with jackets and high collars. And on the instances the marks could not be hidden by his clothing, he lied like a battered wife afraid to give away her husband.

His bouts of opium use were far too debilitating to indulge in more than a very few times; it took longer to recuperate from it than he could afford. Even the mere two or three times he resorted to it were almost more than he could stand, leaving him a wretched wreck until it metabolized. For times like these, he locked himself in his laboratory until it finally passed.

As for the brothel, he hated it as deeply as he was drawn to it. He despised himself for having reduced a sacred act to bouts of loveless, bestial rutting. He was dreadfully afraid that he might contract some disease, more for fear that it would expose his doings than because of any concern for his health. Some strange luck, though, must have been with him, for on only a single occasion did he become truly sick from one of his illicit encounters— he knew it right off as syphilis, the sinner’s disease. His stomach had terribly rebelled as his skin grew raw with sores, seething marks that were the badges of his sin. And yet, even as he took pains to hide them, he could not deny the feeling that he was warranted it. Penance, he thought to himself. This was penance, and perhaps less than he deserved.

But marks of body, even those from the disease, all healed. The deep scars, Henry carried on his soul.

He loathed himself with a fire, that he could be capable of such depravity. His actions horrified him as intensely as they drew him. What grave wrongs must live in him, he marveled in revulsion, that he was so driven to these things. He was exhausted by constantly being at odds with himself. His soul felt defiled in a way nothing could ever wash clean.

And, oh, to have felt clean again! He lived in constant terror of being found out and exposed for the beast he was. It tore at him, the hypocritical nature of his existence, that for all the virtue he aspired to, his life was so abjectly dissolute. The wearing of this conflict was harder to hide than any of his other debaucheries, heartsickness no doctor could cure. But at that, keeping things hidden, he was a master.

On the very rare occurrence someone would express worry for his health or condition, he allayed their concerns deftly with deepest assurances that he was fine. Whatever had worried them, the warm earnestness of his demeanor relieved any doubts. He simply gave a heartening smile, thanked them sincerely for their concern, and wept inside with the effort it took to make it look effortless.

He marveled at their innocence, their naïveté. He was the Good Doctor in their minds, and so they accepted what he said with simple, goodhearted faith. He wished desperately that such innocence was still a part of him. So much lately he found himself observing other men his age, turning his pocket watch over in his hands, envying them for what they had found in life. They had come into their places in the world, with wives and families now, leading lives of which they need not be ashamed. It was Henry’s sad fate to stand always on the fringes of some other man’s contentedness. Theirs were lives of the sort Henry had always dreamed of. They were everything he wanted to be. In his heart of hearts, Henry wanted nothing more than to be respected, to be loved, and to be good. Perhaps most torturous of all, Henry truly wanted to be good.

He indulged in those sins to fill the voids in his life, to handle the loneliness, the emptiness, the insidious self-loathing. So often of late he hated being Henry Jekyll, would rather be anyone else. He wondered what it might be like, to live the life of a truly honorable man. To no longer need the escape of numbing chemical oblivion. To be touched by a woman who was not a whore, to know more than mere fleshly affection that had to be bought. To be seen as more than just a pale, vacillating shadow of a man. To live a life that would allow him to finally, after all this time, respect himself.

And make no mistake, Henry tried. Nine-tenths of the time he was simply the good doctor, the respectable London man of honorable reputation and virtuous nature. It was that one-tenth of him that haunted him.

His conflicted nature bemused as well as pained him. He set to examining it, regarding it like a chemical for identification, or an illness to diagnose. He took careful stock of himself, and was confused by what he found. His need to do right, he knew, was just as strong as his need to do wrong. No part of his nature was wholly untrue. A man, then, was not truly himself unto himself, but rather a whole made of two contrasting halves, two elements combined to form one human nature. It was the conflict of these two that so tormented Jekyll. He had to find a way to silence the awful urgings of his darker half.

In all his life, it was only matters of science and learning that he had ever shown true quality. And so to combat the evil inside him, it was science he would turn to.

~~~


	4. The League

Henry pored over everything he could find on the psychology of good versus evil, searching for some way that they could be affected and changed. Anything that was made of parts, he concluded, could somehow conceivably be separated. He only needed to discover how. He even began to speak of his research with his colleague and old friend, Dr. Hastie Lanyon. Once, Damon and Pythias themselves could have been no closer than Henry Jekyll and Hastie Lanyon. Like Utterson, he and Henry’s friendship went back to their days as young schoolboys, and it had endured into adulthood. It was with him that Jekyll confided his speculation that the two halves of human nature could be somehow split.

But this concept, he found, was far too radical and unorthodox for Lanyon. The other doctor could not suffer such ideas, ideas that dared to venture outside the narrow, limited worldview the doctor had made for himself. He dismissed them as fancy, called them “unscientific balderdash.” The two men grew apart, and Lanyon never came out and said it, but Jekyll soon saw that the doctor thought he was mad.

Jekyll could not bear to further alienate his friend, and so refrained from sharing any more of his experimentation. But no amount of disparagement could turn him from that line of inquiry. The thought obsessed him, the hope that there might be a way that he could draw the evil from him and expel it.

He sought it desperately; all mind and soul were bent on it. He all but lived in the dark of his laboratory. A man less brilliant, and less desperate than he, could never have endured it. He spent months upon months among his chemicals and notebooks, until finally, at long last, he had it. He had found it, he was sure of it; all his research and experiments supported his conclusion. He had at last discovered the formula that could separate man’s good from evil.

All that remained was to test it. The thought gripped him with dread, for he had no subject but himself. Despite his confidence in what he had found, he knew he was putting his life at great risk. He stared at it in torturous indecision, fear and hope warring within him. But his heart twisted to think he could be so close to salvation and yet did not dare to take it. This could be his savior from that inexorable darkness. At last, at last, he might be free.

It took every ounce of courage he could summon, but Jekyll drank.

The chemicals burned smartly as they went down, and almost instantaneously brought great pain with it. There were other sensations as well, ones of stirring, shifting, twisting. This went on for what felt like hours, until at last the tremors ceased.

The pain was completely gone now. Everything seemed somehow strange. Firstly he noticed his clothing had become too big for him. Though he was standing, he seemed to be considerably closer to the ground. Strangest of all, he felt different; younger, freer, somehow lighter, unburdened by care of any kind. No more were the demons of his repressions hounding him within.

He could not see himself then, because he had not yet brought the full-length mirror into his laboratory. His shape was now no longer the tall, well-formed, and mild-featured one of Henry Jekyll. He was smaller and rougher now, almost troglodytic, bristling with coarse hair. There was some air of deformity to him, not a physical one, but some dark suggestions that people would spot at once. His nature had been separated all right; his dark side had been torn out and given a form of its own. His potion had worked.

He gave the creature a name, for he was the part of Jekyll’s nature that had before been hidden.

Edward Hyde.

With Hyde, such freedom as Jekyll had never known in his life was opened up to him. Every sin Jekyll could not commit without wrenching pangs of guilt, Hyde did with a shameless vigor. His were such debaucheries as would scar the soul of any decent gentleman, and yet he only delighted in them. What Hyde wished to do, he did, what he wanted, he took, free from any compunction. And in the distant part of his mind that was still Henry Jekyll, he exulted in it.

People withdrew instinctively from Hyde’s presence, as if sensing there was something gravely wrong with him. But what cared Hyde? He needed no one and feared no one’s judgment. He drank till he was senseless or maddened, he fought with the violence of an arctic storm, he fell on the harlots with such fire as though they were every woman Jekyll had ever wanted and dared not seek.  
There was no need to dissociate his deeds from the name of Henry Jekyll, for in the form of Edward Hyde, he was not Henry Jekyll. There were even no more physical debilitations to endure— as soon as he reverted to his true self, he was as whole and healthful as ever. Indeed, Jekyll was now in better condition than he had been in a long time. He had suffered from various lasting ill turns; old injuries, lingering chemical effects, even the intermittent symptoms of syphilis. The first time he had changed back into Jekyll, these complaints vanished entirely.

And so Hyde became one more secret vice for him, one more dishonorable indulgence from which he could not turn away. He still had those base urges, those desires to do terrible things, but a spell as Hyde sated that need. More than that, though, it gave him a different feeling than he had never experienced in his life. He had a… a presence as Hyde, a stronger bearing than he’d ever had as Jekyll.

As Hyde, he was no longer marginalized. He was no longer ignored. For the first time in his life, he felt like something more than an overlooked shadow.

He should have known it was not to last.

The knowledge of what had truly happened soon began to wear on him. True, his potion had worked, but it had not done what he had wished it to do. His aim had been to purge the evil from his heart, not give it a form of its own. His urges were still there— indeed, they were made shaped and solid in Hyde. This, though, was not what truly began to unsettle him.

What terrified him was that Hyde was growing.

Upon his conception, Edward had been a smaller, younger man than he. The doctor speculated that was because Hyde represented the evil in him, which was less developed and less dominant than his good. But now, gone was that short, dark figure with some indefinable suggestion of deformity— devoid of goodness, yet still with something of civilized man in him. Now he was a towering colossus of bestial, uncontrollable evil. With each transformation, Edward was growing greater and stronger, becoming less and less human, and more and more a monster. And with it, his deeds were growing worse. He fed off the city’s great suffering, just as he fed off Jekyll’s. His crudity increased to match his beastliness, and Jekyll came to hate his monstrous alter ego— almost as deeply as he hated himself.

Jekyll took again to hiding in his laboratory to think in solitude; refuge it was, perhaps the one place in the world he truly felt he belonged. He took up his cello and absently began to play; it was Claude Debussy’s Sonata. He himself preferred the likes of Mozart and Brahms, but he found Debussy somehow quieted the inner raging of Hyde. He needed quiet to deal with his thoughts.

He understood now, better than ever, what great malevolence he had unleashed. His discovery of Hyde did not save him but damned him further. There was no excess Edward Hyde could not withstand; his evil knew no bounds. He was a twisted perversion of even Jekyll’s darkest desires. He had only freed the beast from the restraints of his conscience, not his conscience from the torment of the beast.

He thought he was removing the sin from the life of Henry Jekyll, but he had not split his natures into the wrong and the right. Yes, Hyde was unadulterated evil, but Jekyll remained the tortured mix. At any rate, Henry’s dissolutions were ones of weakness— the attempt to combat the feeling of being marginalized and overlooked all his life. It was only weakness, a thing that was entirely human. There was no humanity in Hyde. His crimes were solely of malice, the willful desire to cause suffering. He was a rapist and a murderer, the cruelest, most bestial of all sinners. The creature was pure evil, and that was the only purity he had.

There was a mirror he had moved into his laboratory, one he had once used to observe his transformations into Hyde. He turned to it now to regard himself, the self that was Henry Jekyll. The face that had once perhaps been handsome was worn and drawn. His skin, always fair, had become pale as a ghost. His eyes had been haunted before, but now they were dark and shadowed with pain. Edward’s presence was wearing on him, and the strain clearly showed.

He vowed to keep Hyde forever within him from that moment forth, to never let his evil see the light of day again.

But the monster’s insidiousness could not be undone.

The raging within him became too great. Henry could bear it no longer. He opened the leather box in which he stored the vials of his formula. With every transformation, the agony increased, along with the monstrousness of Hyde.

He barreled out into the city on a mindless path of destruction. The tatters of what had been a fine suit still hung about his colossal frame— a pathetic veneer of humanity on a wild beast. Before long he had left the back ways and shadowed alleys where his evil had heretofore always lurked. Now he was out in the main blocks of London. It was there that he saw the figure hurrying along the street. He had the air of a kindhearted, well-mannered elderly gentleman. He seemed to be seeking directions.  
The man looked up, and up, at him and froze in shock. He towered over the old man like a giant. To think that when it all began, Jekyll had been taller than Hyde.

He carried with him then Jekyll’s heavy brass-fitted walking stick. He lashed out with it like a club.

The kindhearted, well-mannered elderly gentleman was dead by the first stroke. Hyde, in his brutality, kept on striking him. The thick wood of the pace stick cracked in half.

It wasn’t until the newsboy had come with the paper the next morning that Jekyll saw the enormity of what he’d done. A serving maid had been witness to the crime, had seen it all from a window and reported it to the police. She spoke of the murderer as so bestial as to be a monster rather than a man. Gabriel Utterson had identified the victim as a client of his, a gentleman by the name of Sir Danvers Carew.

Jekyll stared at the headline in horror. He knew that name. Hyde had murdered a Member of Parliament.

It was hardly the first time Edward had committed such a horror, but never before the eyes of all the city. His other great crimes had been in the shadows, deep in the underworld of London where cruelty and depravity were a matter of course. No one had seen him there, no one knew what he had done. Now all of London knew, and was up in arms to hunt down the beast.

The terror of it all gripped Jekyll like a vice. They were hunting Hyde now, and therefore hunting him. They would seek him out and destroy him, destroy them both for whether in exposure or punishment for their crimes, Jekyll would be finished. No matter how Hyde would rage and roar, to let him out would be to sign both their death warrants. The doctor’s heart thundered in his chest, his blood racing in his veins. He happened to glance in the direction of the delicate antique looking-glass, one that once belonged to his mother, hanging beside the fireplace.

He was himself, and yet the face that stared back at him was not Henry Jekyll’s. It was Edward Hyde’s.

Jekyll had been known to spend long hours in his laboratory. Now he would not emerge for any reason. No matter how the servants pleaded with him, the door stayed locked. They did not understand what had come over their master, and they were afraid.

It had grown too much. London was no longer safe for him, was not safe for anyone as long as he was there. He made up his mind what had to be done. Fighting to ignore Hyde’s fury in his head, he took up his pen and wrote a letter that was pages long.

He confessed everything to Utterson. Sir Danvers Carew’s murder. The creation of Hyde and the truth of his identity. The full extent of his depravity and self-loathing. Everything. He finished the letter with a promise that he was going to commit suicide. He did not, but almost wished he had to courage to.

He sealed his confession and sent it to Utterson. And then he fled.

He always wanted to see Paris. Though certainly not like this.

He had wondered what London thought of Henry Jekyll now, supposedly a self-destroyer. What that would have done to his reputation would have been too horrible to guess. But he learned the story told around the city was that Hyde had murdered Jekyll, then killed himself— a small lie that Utterson had doubtless made, for the sake of saving his friend’s reputation. Jekyll was moved to tears to hear this; even knowing the truth of Henry’s sad life, the lawyer’s devotion was beyond breaking. How he wanted to thank Utterson, to stay in London with his true friend, but knew it was best for all of them if Doctor Henry Jekyll remained dead to the world.

He fled to France to escape the sadness and bad memories in London. He passed well enough among the city’s people, his unassuming ways and his fluency in French allowing him to go unnoticed. It was here, in the life of anonymity he had built for himself, that he surrendered to Hyde.

The power of the evil had grown so strong within him that it was beyond him to control. Not only did he sometimes see Hyde’s visage in the mirror rather than his own reflection, he heard the monster’s voice in his head.

It was not all the time that Hyde would appear to him or speak, just when his emotions ran high. It came when he was angry, or upset, or afraid.

But easily the worst of it was when he realized that Hyde would follow him to the brothel.

The monster responded to any time his blood grew hot, and this was no exception. Hyde enjoyed Henry’s debaucheries, but not so much as tormenting him for them. Hyde hated his alter ego, thought him impotent and weak. He harassed the doctor mercilessly. Hyde’s presence mortified him, and his words tore into him. It was like having a witness to his deeds. A witness who spared no opportunity to torture him.

 _“How many have there been now, that wanted your money more than they wanted you?”_

No shame, no disgrace, no dishonor he’d ever known in his life came close to equal that raw, visceral humiliation. Hyde saw the conflict between his better, reasoning nature and his baser, lesser nature. He saw every craven desire Henry was too weak to control.

The monster’s cruelty was bitter. Often he remained silent for long periods of time, as Jekyll dared to hope that the beast’s consciousness had not been wakened. The doctor would try to go about his secret business, as Hyde waited for the right moment. And precisely when it would wound him the most, Hyde would speak.

 _“Not enough blood for both your governing organs at once, eh, Henry? And which one do you always let win out?”_

Jekyll tried to silence him, tried to fight back, but there was nothing he could say. How could he retort to an enemy who knew him as well as he knew himself?

Sometimes he would hear the monster demand to be released, and Jekyll had no more strength to resist him. Hyde would rampage through the darkest places in the city, a monster greater and more terrible now than he’d ever been in London, wrecking destruction and violent horrors until the elixir at last wore off. And through it all, the small part of him that remained Henry Jekyll hid in a corner of his mind and sobbed.

No longer could he hold to the belief that his deeds and Hyde’s were not one and the same. Not knowing he was the one to unleash the horror, that it had been created from the darkness in his very own soul. All semblance of the dapper gentleman doctor was gone now; a broken, trembling wreck was left in his place.

He had not killed himself when he told Utterson he was going to, and more than once regretted it. Suicide, that blackest of all sins, was often in his thoughts. He should rid the world of his evil once and for all. The most honorable act of which he was capable would be to take his miserable life, and face whatever Hell he’d made for himself in the next world. The evil at last would be destroyed, and death would bring the only peace he’d ever know.

But he was too great a coward even for that.

He wondered if tales of Hyde’s crimes in Paris had made their way back to London. Perhaps Utterson had figured out by now that his friend was still alive, too cowardly to do what he knew he should. That he’d ran away from the trouble he’d caused rather than facing it like a man.

But Paris became no more refuge than London. The horror of Hyde’s deeds was only growing worse. After the hideous crimes committed in that home on the Rue Morgue, Paris’ most famous detective Auguste Dupin had found him out and placed a reward on his head. It was one dark night not long after someone finally caught him, bagged and trapped him like a wild animal. The man who did it had been unstoppable; he handled his rifle as if it were an extension of himself. He dragged him onto a strange submersible vessel beyond anything he’d ever seen before. He had a proposition to deliver.

He recognized the name of Allan Quartermain. Jekyll had read of him in countless books. He was an adventurer beyond compare, the only hunter in the world who could have captured a beast such as Hyde. He was the sort of man Henry had once dreamed of being, tall and strong, handsome and fearless, with a presence that commanded attention.

Hyde was furious at being caught, and more so at being chained. He tore the heavy bounds from their moorings and whipped them at the men around him. They were dark-skinned, he noted distantly, Asian in aspect rather than European.

“Stay back if you value your life,” Quartermain called to others there. There was a fellow in clearly Indian dress standing imperious and stern near the hunter. A man in a fine suit and impossibly fine features looked at Hyde as if bored. Another in a long coat and covered in white greasepaint stood near him and a tall tow haired youth dressed like an American. And lastly, a darkly lovely woman with sharp eyes peered in interest at him. Hyde leered brazenly in her direction, but she did not betray the slightest hint of discomfort.

“You’ve done terrible things in England,” the hunter said to him, in a deep and rich voice. “So terrible you were forced to flee the country. I’m ashamed to say that her Majesty’s government is willing to offer you amnesty, in return for your services.” He regarded him steadily. “Do you want to go home?”

“Home,” Hyde rumbled. In the back of Edward’s thoughts, Henry lurked with his own. They offered him official pardon, not if he repudiated his evil, but if he were to use it to their ends. This hardly involved him at all. Even now, they wanted Edward, not Henry. He did not want Hyde’s wickedness to be legitimized, did not want his own wickedness to be legitimized. He hated the thought that suddenly Hyde’s evil was acceptable.

Still… he missed his old life, the good moments of it anyway, and his missed his old friends, Gabriel Utterson in particular. He wanted to go back.

“Home’s where the heart is, that’s what they say,” Hyde continued. “And I have been missing London so. Its sorrow is as sweet to me as a rare wine.”

He nodded his great head in a mockery of politeness. “I am yours.”

His eyes swept the room, observing the tension among them, sizing them up like a hunter sizes his prey. “Don’t be afraid.”

The American affected unconcern. “Who’s says I’m afraid?”

“You!” With a mighty heave, Hyde tore the chains from the wall and swung them, making them duck and dive for cover. “You stink of fear!”

“Quite the parlor trick,” the man in gray commented lazily.

Hyde eyed him fiercely. “Wait till you see my next one.” He convulsed in agony, and began to change. They looked on in horror as the transformation overtook him, tearing away the monstrous form of Edward Hyde. Henry came out screaming, and collapsed to the ground.

Chest heaving, he shook himself out of the chains that were now too big for him. He stood up straight and faced them, struggling to gather what shreds of his dignity he could.

“Doctor Henry Jekyll,” he nearly whispered, his words a tragic parody of gentleman’s manners. “At your service.”

And so the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was formed. They briefed in on their mission, and of the great, impossibly advanced ship they were on, the Nautilus.

It was most unusual to be in the company of people as strange as he was. A traveled hunter, a pirate scientist, an invisible man, an ageless immortal, an American adventurer, and a lady vampire. One Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, the vampire.

Mrs. Harker, he learned from Nemo, was a chemist like himself. Perhaps he could… perhaps he could talk with her. Just talk. It would be cheering to talk with a fellow scientist who shared his interest.

He heard the story of her and her late husband’s battle with the demonic Transylvania count, and of how she been made into a bloodthirsty monster. The thought spoke strangely to him. There was an evil inside her, one that she had to keep under control. He felt a great sympathy for her; indeed, a kinship. There was a monster in him as well. He knew what it was to fight a demon.

So darkly beautiful, a knowledgeable chemist, and with a monster inside her as well. Small wonder she so fascinated him.

And so he found himself striding down the hallways of the ship toward Mrs. Harker’s stateroom, hoping to speak with her. He found her with Mr. Dorian Gray, but instead of turning and leaving, he lingered just beyond the doorway. As it ever was, they did not notice he was there.

Gray offered her a drink, and when she cut herself on the breaking glass, the blood woke the beast in her. But she fell on Dorian with a hunger that had nothing to do with blood.

Henry’s hands found his pocket watch in distress. Why did he do this? Why did he not leave? It was wrong.

But like so much else in his life, it was wrong and he could not resist it.

It did not surprise him to find she was drawn to Dorian Gray. Gray was striking and dangerous. There was danger in Henry too, but it was base and vile, monstrous. His was coarse where Gray’s was refined; his was repellent where Gray’s was seductive. It came down to Dorian remaining yet a man, while Henry was no more than a beast.

“And what do you know of demons?” Mina had asked Mr. Gray. He was sure whatever Gray knew, it was nothing to what she did. Or what Henry himself did.

He should have left then, but he simply could not. As always, he was standing on the fringes, totally ignored, able only to watch what he had never, could never experience himself. No woman had ever leapt at him like that; no woman had ever truly wanted him.

His pulse thundered in his ears, his blood burned like fire in his veins. And as always when he felt like this, it came again, the voice low and fierce in the depths of his mind. Hyde’s voice.

 _“That’s right. Look, but don’t touch, Henry.”_ He chuckled viciously. _“That’s your way.”_

It was his way. From the girls who hardly noticed him to the women who always ignored him, it was ever his way, unless she was a whore who could not reject the coin and so would not reject him.

He turned and nearly bolted from the doorway, caught yet again in his low moments by his most bitter enemy. He tucked his pocket watch back into his waistcoat.

“Just shut up,” he snapped. “I won’t be tricked again.”

 _“Tricked?”_ Hyde echoed, amused. _“You’ve known what I was about each time you drank the formula.”_ And reveled in the guiltless corruption it opened to him.

“Liar,” he snarled. “I’m a good man. A good man!”

It wrenched him to utter the words. Good men didn’t lead hypocritical double lives. Good men didn’t hide in the shadows to watch and envy the passions of other people. Good men didn’t bring forth monsters from their own souls.

Hyde knew his thoughts as well as he did. _“Who’s lying now? You want it,”_ he accused. _“Even more than you want her.”_

“No!” he denied, but his stomach churned with frustrated desire, both for Mina and for Hyde’s evil.

 _“You can’t shut me out forever. Drink the elixir.”_

“No!” What would they think, if he released the monster in the very vessel? What would Mina think?

 _“She barely looks at you!”_

Of course Henry knew it. Just like all the others had barely looked at him. “Be quiet!” he nearly pleaded, trying to shut out the memories. He didn’t want to think of those things, didn’t want to remember that pain.

 _“She’d look at me!”_

Hyde leapt out and him and seized him by the throat until he couldn’t breath. Hyde was out, Hyde was loose, the evil within him could no longer be controlled…

Nemo’s sharp voice rang out and dashed his vision away. And that was all it had been, a vision.

“Contain your evil, Doctor,” the captain said sternly. “I’ll not have the brute free upon my ship.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword. “Must I take drastic steps?”

They all saw his struggle, and did not think he could handle it. He felt suddenly very angry; was there no one who thought anything of him? Why was he ever so reduced in everyone’s sight?

“I am in control,” he forced out thickly. He knew it was a lie. He hadn’t been in control of himself since he was twenty-four years old, before Hyde was ever dreamed of.

“I very much doubt that,” said Nemo sternly, not fooled for an instant. “Even the strongest of men know evil’s allure.”

“Your talk is all well and good, sir,” he shot back. “But your own past is far from laudable!”

He could see he had struck home with that. The anger flared in him, then burnt out. What right had he to speak of anyone else’s ignominies? He looked down, very ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. And he truly was. He turned to leave, but Nemo spoke again.

His voice was hesitant. “Has Hyde killed?”

Killed? Hyde had victims who had prayed for death to take them, to bring end to his cruelties. Death was the closest Hyde knew to mercy. Jekyll had not the words for the evils the monster had committed.

He turned and looked back at Nemo. “He… has done every evil a man can do,” he said at last. “And my curse… I recall his actions.”

“I sympathize,” the Indian replied, his bearing a little less stern for a moment. “My curse— I recall my own.”

The doctor continued down the hallway. I loathe you, he thought to the beast.

The echoes of Hyde’s voice still whispered in his head. You made me from yourself.

Indeed, Henry had his own actions to remember as well.

THE END


End file.
